Rich Rubasch
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COW Coins
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Premiere Pro Coins
Forum Replies Created
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But it is not about drive space! It is about an offline/online workflow to allow more layers of realtime for the offline, especially layers with alpha. With DV I can get 3 or more layers realtime with effects depending on what I am doing. That is why I would offline anyway. Then, once the edit is finished, I can THEN choose to upload in the format I wish…SD 10 bit, HDV native, HD full etc. That is what Avid also anticipated…you always got more realtime on an Avid system with a single field low rez codec.
So it isn’t always about disk space, but even as computers get faster, we will always, as editors, want the most realtime layers for the first cut. Even better if we can pile on effects including complex mattes etc in the low rez stage and then prep it for a full rez upload with the format of our choosing.
(Many of you already know this, so bear with me.) We say offline because in the old days the major decks and hardware, like ADO’s, Kaleidoscopes, Switchers, Character Generators, 1″, Beta and Digi-Beta machines were used only in the online stage. They were online bays. The offline was usually 3/4″. It was essential then, as it is now, that every single decision made in the offline was exact to the frame when it came into the expensive online bay.
So Apple somehow has a very real problem with managing those decisions made in an “offline” stage…IMO, the most critical stage. The last thing an editor wants is to have to compare the offline with the onine sequence only to find huge disparaties between the two. and then make that editor redo all those edits.
On a computer.
In 2005!!!
With software created by the same company that made, not only the computer, but the OS AND the media delivery format, namely Quicktime!
It is quite surprising, therefore, that we are all pretty miffed by the fact that we have version 5.0.2 and this same problem has been around since version 1. With virtually no response from Apple. That is what leads me to believe it is the fault of Quicktime and how it and the OS handle the file info, and not a simple software fix.
Adobe would not have let it go on this long. Perhaps that is yet another reason they moved away from the Mac Platform. Not because of FCP, but because of Quicktime. They saw the limitation, didn’t want to go the Avid way and create their own media management implementation, and walked away.
Hey Apple…don’t make us all walk away.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media -
And one of the reasons for this is the unusual way Avid handles media…it always creates new clips, tags them with a bunch of info and keeps track of them with a sophisticated database management system working behind the scenes. The media management part of the Avid app is part of what made it the longest single piece of code for any application back in 1995. Quicktime has many faults in the managing of clips department. That is why Avid decided using Apple’s own media was not going to work for a sophisticated editing app…they built their own media format and then packed in with it the metadata to tell the app if it was a still from a source tape and at what timecode, or a slo mo clip, or a reverse clip, etc. Quicktime was not capable of that level of media tracking in a multi-track video NLE timeline.
It truly seems that Apple actually thought we would all just upload our entire tapes, cut them together and output them back to the same format tape. It truly looks as if that is what they were thinking when they developed it.
I recall when the IMix from Accom used standard Quicktime clips and naming conventions for their media. Same problems were happening on those systems, but because of compression, there was less of an offline/online workflow. But with Avid and products like Symphony, Avid users like myself were quite used to, and very happy with, the offline/decompose/online workflow. It was a brilliant implimentation of the process. Apple, on the other hand has really dropped it on this area, which for us pros, is a very big friggin deal! We look like dunces when it takes 2 days to upload a show full rez because we have to redig and recut our slow mo and reverse clips and stills into a new sequence. Nothing like doing things twice to help the bottome line, but who feels justified charging for the shortcomings of your NLE?
Apple might be backed into a corner with the limitations of the Quicktime metadata wrapper…at least that is what Avid claims. They have stuck to OMF and a very robust XML implementation. I would be paying more attention to Apple’s Quicktime site and not the FCP update site…I think you will learn more about what might be around the corner in media management from the Quicktime guys…it is in their lap now.
From an old Avid guy who uses FCP to offline/online, that is my perspective. Avid is simply better…WAY better, in this department.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc. -
If you are serious at all and if you have at least 3 more DVD projects to build then you must get DVD Studio Pro. It is so elegant to use and yet has every feature you might need in the future. Don’t sweat the $300 it costs…get it!
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media -
You talked about being efficient, but a day to author a 10 minute video with a simple menu with a play all button shouldn’t take an entire day. I can build these in a couple hours and if I have the spare G4 I can build it and burn it while I am doing something else.
Other than that I think you were pretty realistic with your estimate, but I would have padded it more for a new unknown client.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media -
Try duplicating the sequence, then changing the Sequence setting, rather than copy the clips. Or if you control click and see if there is a “copy markers” in there. But duplicating the sequence should leave them there, then just change the setting to Pal.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media -
A lot of it is instinct. Here’s a story…
Back in grade school there was a kid in my class that was clearly an artist. He could draw or mold clay and everything looked hyper realistic. His mother was an artist and it ran in the family. I would watch him in class, even try to sit like him and hold the pencil like him, but could never get his amazing detail and clarity.
Once we had an art assignment to mold clay into any animal…I chose the buffalo because it had such a distinct shape I though it would be a breeze. I made one that I thought was pretty good. We all showed the class, and when we were about done, I showed him to ask what he thought. He said it was pretty good, and he grabbed it, moved it around a bit in his hands and…whala…there in front of me was a lifelike miniature buffalo, which looked little like the one I made, but strikingly like the ones I have seen!
Now I do motion graphics, have won many awards, am a real client pleaser and have made a decent career of it. Still, I will watch a reel from Ted Gore or Shane Ross or some of the others and simply shrink back into my chair and ask what my work is missing…’cause it’s missing something!
Keep at it. Try different things. You will find your “look” and you will either be able to sell it or you might make a good producer! Go to an art show. Notice how each artist has found a niche and a look that they just seem to keep doing over and over and it sells. Not many artists stray from their one style. So find yours. And show the world that that is the way that you would “polish” that particular animation!
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media -
Before you buy any software go and find your accountant…then buy whatever they use. I do all of my invoice generating and recording of payables, but the accountant comes in about 3 or 4 times a year to “straighten things out.” My accountant charges around $80 per hour, so for the year I usually end up paying him between $700 and $1000. that includes my corporate tax form, my personal taxes and any and all other work throughout the year.
But you should also get tow work downloading the many PDF files from the Federal and State Department of Revenue to learn as much as you can about your tax burden. Don’t get behind on your taxes!
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media -
I agree…the question is not what format it is, but what you are starting out with. How much variance is there between cameras? How far does the director want to go? How competent do your editors feel with the color correction tools you have? Do you like their work?
You have a long project on your plate and $5000-$8000 seems reasonable since it’s hard to know how much input a given director might want to offer. Could slow things down.
But talented eyes can even out all the color and give the show that polish that your own editors might not.
There is a lot more to the question than the cost of the job. It is also what might be required and how critical it is to the story.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media -
Also, be sure to check your renders after you run them throug AE, especially if you are just fixing part of the shot and don’t want to change the overall color balance. There was a thread a while back about how AE handles 10 bit color space and in my experience it brings up the blacks and overall luminance. Not good. I simply brought a 10-bit clip into AE and dropped it into a new comp and rendered it to the 10-bit codec and it was definately not the same clip. No solution except to export it as 8-bit.
Wonder now how using a 16-bit comp might have worked.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media -
Is the software codec available for download? If I have a Mac without M100 hardware can I download and install the codec and render M100 files for another M100 P6000 XS system running on OS9?
Thanks,
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media